


mask, mask, lie at last.

by jeonginks



Category: Stray Kids (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fantasy, F/F, F/M, Fluff, Magic, it's a meet-cute kinda thing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-16
Updated: 2020-09-16
Packaged: 2021-03-07 03:07:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,662
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26489917
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jeonginks/pseuds/jeonginks
Summary: jisung forgot how or why he applied for a part-time job at this store, but he arrived on time for his interview only to realize the store sells personality to people and apparently demons come around a lot?
Relationships: Han Jisung | Han/Reader
Comments: 3
Kudos: 17





	mask, mask, lie at last.

There was a bell chime when he walked into the store.

Jisung swore he heard a bell chime when he walked through the door. His reprinted resume clutched in one hand, his phone sat carefully in the other. He had stared down the single door, painted with a vintage dark brown and carved with an unrecognizable pattern.

The smell of light coffee hit him first, wafting in both a mellow but awakening sense. It smelt sweet, the kind of coffee you would get after one too many cubes of sugar. The scent overwhelmed him, allowing the floor creak under his boots and the rustling of beverage machines to go completely unnoticed.

And he swore he heard a bell chime when he walked inside.

But more people were coming into the shop and there have been zero announcements of arrival, unlike his own. There was no bell, there was no closing of doors, there were only more people walking in, startling him in the process, and they were all lining up behind the customer line as if they have already been to this place before.

The thought perplexed him; was he the only person here who has never been here before? Was he the only clueless person in this room? Something about that was unsettling to him, but he hid it away by focusing on other things instead.

Amidst the nervous fidgeting he was doing with the papers and the hem of his white shirt, he awkwardly stood at the side of the cashier counter, hoping the barista working behind it would notice him. He wasn’t here to buy drinks, after all, he was only here because he applied for a part-time job.

But his stiffness wasn’t paid attention to, understandably. You haven’t spared him a single glance as you tended to the customers waiting; patiently, desperately, or emotionally. You just kept shuffling around behind the counter, taking all the orders and offering customers a free sample of raspberry ice tea after handing them a bracelet-like object, with some kind of porcelain, marble type charm attached to the string. 

You did notice him, though. His shy face and timid posture were hard to miss when they were being all glamoured up by his messily-styled hair and expensively-styled clothes. You have seen those sewed on logos once or twice before, worn by adults and children with extravagant air, most of them tainted with a hint of despair whenever they walk into your shop.

You haven’t had the time to pay more attention to him, and you thought you needn’t do so. He was probably just another customer, a new and awfully curious one who decided to linger around to examine the interior design of your shop. He would eventually line up with the rest of the customers, you would take his order, make his drink, and he would be on his way with a different version of himself.

Jisung walked around the empty area next to the long, wooden cashier counter. He looked to the side, his eyes breathing curiosity upon the short glimpse into what was behind the structure that hid the working space from everyone. It was the first thing he saw when he walked into the lobby area of the shop, the countertop that took up most of the space in this tight rectangular area.

There was a rusty, vintage cash register sitting at the edge of the table. It was old-fashioned, and making too much noise with its buttons and the handle whenever you operate it, but Jisung assumed it to be the theme of this shop. He thought it was pretty amazing, and he wondered if he would be using it if he was ever officially hired to work here.

Moving to the side, sitting in the middle of the counter was a glassy gap, a big display window that allowed customers to look into the displayed goods. Jisung has yet to take a careful look at everything, he hasn’t read the labels set to the side of each little vine basket placed inside, but at first glance, he thought he saw tea leaves, flower petals, and coffee beans.

It made him feel nervous; that was a lot of different ingredients. How many drink combinations would he have to memorize? All the little details of one drink combination would probably factor into play as well! Not to mention the display window wasn’t the only thing lined up with beverage ingredients.

Standing tall behind you, all the way from the bottom of the ground to the tip of the ceiling, was a wall of box drawers. They lined up next to each other with pearly white pull handles, and neat labels stuck under the handle. All of them were stuck precisely at the same place, like a non-human did this or very careful person with too much time on their hands.

Jisung wasn’t exactly sure what laid within all the drawers, neither could he get close enough to see what was written on those small labels, but he suspected they only contained more and more ingredients.

The only thing making a break between the drawers was the dome-shaped fireplace engraved within the wall. There really shouldn’t be a fireplace stuffed in the middle between all these wooden boxes, Jisung thought. It seemed to be a rather reckless choice of design but considering you have yet to light it on fire, perhaps it was only there for decorations and it has no real usage.

“Sir, do you plan to order anything for now or are you going to continue to look around?”

Jisung looked away from the wall he has been staring for the last couple of minutes. There wasn’t anything on it for him to look at, just a faint carving of a quote: _personality can be changed, but memories forever remain._

Whatever that was supposed to mean, he supposed it was all free to be interpreted, but it did feel a little too dramatic for a small drink shop.

“I–good morning,” he greeted politely as he made his way over to the cash register. You were looking at him, eyes wide and pursed lips. Your eyes darting down to the papers in his hands and back up at his face. Jisung sucked in a small gulp, finding the knot in his throat restricting him. “I–uhm, I was called here for a job interview…?”

Your brows raised for a moment. Job interview? One thing you knew for sure was that nobody ever informed you about the cosmic shop chain possibly hiring new helpers. The Entity nor the workers from the other stores have mentioned anything about potential newcomers.

You have always worked in the shop alone, unsure if you were the first one or not but no one was there to show you around when you arrived. You have worked here for as long as time allowed it, so the idea of having a companion who could help around with the workload seemed like a new and foreign idea.

“Right, I see,” you said, rubbing your hands on your apron before holding up a finger at Jisung. “Hold on just a moment, I am going to contact someone.”

Jisung nodded with a soft hum of acknowledgment. His eyes followed you attentively as you turned away to move to the back of the staff area. You headed past the fireplace and the rows of drawers until you came across an empty space. He hadn’t realized another bridge between all the drawers until then.

It was a door, also made out of wood. But instead of the unfathomable pattern he saw carved in the front door of the shop, this door was with a small tinted window placed in the middle and separated into four equal parts. Jisung squinted his eyes; all four parts seemed to show a different scenery color, but he could not be sure.

He watched as you brought your hand up to the air instead of grabbing the handle. Then, after you knocked your knuckles against the side of the door twice, you took a step back and waited. The outline of the door glowed a faint shade of halo white before the ground suddenly creaked out loud as if its joints were in pain. He widened his eyes, watching as the door flipped to the side, submerging into the wall.

What came out after the transformation was not another door but a simple wall. A black telephone hung in the middle of the wall. It was one of those candlestick phones he has seen in movies he watched in history classes, with the hand-switch and the rotary dial and everything.

But that was the least of Jisung’s problem at the moment; he just saw your door disappear into the wall and return with a vintage phone, and he has no idea what was happening.

You turned to dial, each tick swiping across the numbered buttons dramatic a loud, before pressing the receiver to your ear. Jisung was trying a little too hard to analyze the expressions you made as you spoke quietly into the transmitter, wondering if he had been here at the wrong time or if he actually went to the wrong store.

Come to think of it, when he applied for an interview for this job, he hadn’t expected to be welcomed into an old-fashion themed store. He was visioning something more modern, like a coffee house with dangling pot plants or a boba shop with pastel-colored chairs. Not wooden brown with old technologies and the wise smell of coffee.

You placed the receiver back onto the switch hook after a short moment. Your hands flew to rub against your apron again before you headed back to the cash register. You had just called an acquaintance working in the modern magic shop and turned out they had gotten themselves a single visitor as well.

Assuming the Entity had pulled some strings without notifying any of the workers first, Jisung was supposed to be here.

“Sorry for the wait,“ you smiled at him as you swiftly kicked the counter in front of you. “You may come in.”

Jisung rounded his eyes at you in confusion, processing your words perfectly but unable to follow your instructions. That was until his eyes shifted downwards, and he gasped at the gaping hole between the tiles and the countertop, which he knew for a fact was not there before. He could see your velcro sneakers and colorful socks, his mind zapping to judge your accessory choices briefly before he pointed at the gap.

“Where–where did that come from?” He asked, looking back up at you.

“Oh, the entrance?” You said, looking down, “You just kick it the counter. You won’t be able to do that right now but after I officially sign your name in the shop system, you will be able to do all kinds of things in here!”

“I’m sorry, kick–kick it?”

You heaved a sigh, smiling slightly at him. He wasn’t just clueless, that way he would at least have a little sense to sniff the magic out of this place. Judging by the looks of it, he has no idea where he fate has brought him into and you, unfortunately, would have to fill him in on everything.

As unknowing as he was, the Entity obviously sent him here for a reason, whether it was to help you with distributing the workload or, perhaps, to finally have somebody new to take over the shop. Either case, you planned to teach him as best as you could of the inner-workings of this shop.

“I will explain everything to you after we finish serving the morning customers,” you said, waving your hand in a beckoning motion as you urged him behind the counter. “Come on! Just… consider this your first day of training.”

Jisung hesitantly nodded. He bent his waist until his head was below the countertop, then he carefully shifted under the table before standing up, sucking in a fresh breath. He pursed his lips into a smile, his cheeks jutting out adorably at the brand new perspective.

Looking around to take in the new environment, because it was always quite different behind the cash register, he was quick to panic when he caught your eyes.

“Oh! Um, uh, do you still need my resume?” He asked, holding out his papers.

You looked down at the papers, blinking at the small front printed on it, then you looked back up at him and shook your head. “Nope, just set it aside, your bags too, and come to me for your apron,” you said before turning around to head back to the single wall standing between the rows of drawers.

Jisung fumbled around for a moment, searching for a discreet place he could put his belongings. He looked around for less ten seconds before he started to feel anxious that he was taking too long, so he ended up dumping everything at the corner before he immediately rushed over to your side.

The wall that once had a telephone has now switched up to a wall with two hangers stuck on top. You stood casually next to the ever-changing wall with his black apron in your hands, and when he approached you, you held it out for him to graciously receive. His eyes were darting between the apron and the wall, and you pushed yourself off with ignorance.

You would explain it to him later.

“Okay, since you are new here, I will just have you serve the drinks to everyone in the lounge area,” you said as you moved away.

You walked forward to the side, where a short shelf was located and attached to the wall-end of the cashier counter. Humming, you tapped your chin with your index finger a few times before pulling open the second drawer down. You gasped victoriously, reaching in to pull out a wooden tray.

“Sorry, the Chibis like to run around the area at night and they move things around to prank me sometimes,” you waved your hand with a laugh as you approached him again. When he flashed you a questioning look, you only shook your head. “I’ll tell you later, you might even see them today if those little devils are feeling generous.”

He took the tray and held it close to his chest, watching as you moved about the area. You took several cups out from the shelf you took the tray out from, then you patted on the wall above the shelf and as he expected, the wall spun to reveal something akin to a jewelry box. Dangling on the tiny handles were lines and lines of bracelet-like objects he saw you handing out to the customers just before.

“These are customer bracelets, each customer that have been here before have their distinctive one,” you mentioned casually as you picked all the bracelets off the first handles, which was the only row of handles that were tainted black instead of white. “These aren’t all of them, by the way. I would show you all of them, but I promise you it’s not a sight for sore eyes, especially in the morning.”

Jisung stumbled back to allow you to brush past him. He was slowing piecing the puzzle together, or at least he was putting all the assumptions together to make an even bigger assumption.

Since those were customer bracelets, and you picked out the amount he eye-balled to be the number of people who were waiting in line, could it be that you were now distributing mugs to each customer? After you pick out the cups, you would make the drink, but Jisung hasn’t seen you write anything down nor were there any receipts printed to show what has been ordered.

He widened his eyes. Have you perhaps memorized everyone’s order already? Hold on a moment, would he be expected to do that as well? That was at least fifteen customers in line, he could not memorize fifteen coffee and tea orders at once, he wouldn’t even have to try for him to know he would fail miserably.

“Han Jisung?”

He turned to you, startled. “Yes!”

“You are being really tense, are you sure you can serve drinks right now?” You asked, tilting your head and frowning at him with a bracelet dangling between your fingers.

The marble reflected the warm lights of the shop and Jisung found his eyes gravitating towards it for some reason. He tried his best to clear his head, clenching his fists and tapping his toes against the floor just to ground himself to the Earth and not dissociate in a pit of anxiety.

“No, I’m fine, just…” he cleared his throat, his eyes squinting as he pointed at the mugs you lined up on the counter. He didn’t know when you did that but you did; everything that happened in this shop just felt so timeless. “Did you memorize everyone’s orders?”

You snorted immediately, your brows raising at him in surprise. “Oh god, no!” You laughed, holding up the bracelet. “The orders are carved into the customers’ individual marble. I key in their order at the register and the order box will do the job.”

Well, now he felt like a fool for overthinking. “That’s… that’s cool,” he said, exhaling in relief.

“Are you sure you are okay?” You asked again after a moment of silence, watching him intently to make sure the pressure wasn’t too much.

It could be the magic bouncing off the walls in the shop. You remembered feeling nauseous and icky when you first arrived as well.

Jisung clutched the tray to his chest, his grip tightening every now and then, and he nodded at you. “Yeah, I’m okay.”

You looked at him for a little bit longer, perhaps to make sure he wasn’t bluffing. When it seemed like he had stopped the light tremors of his body, you finally broke into a smile.

“Alright then, but do tell me if you start feeling fatigued. The energy reverberating the walls could be too strong sometimes depending on the celestial events,” you muttered under your breath, your brows raising in an almost sarcastic manner that made Jisung grimace.

“I won’t make you do much, you just have to serve the drinks today. And these,” you held up the marble bracelet in your hand, “will be your guide to which cup belongs to who.”

Jisung hummed understandingly, his mouth turning into an ‘o’ shape before he spoke, “Do they match the ones you handed out to the customers a while ago?”

“Bingo! Smart boy,” you praised with a snap of your fingers, smiling when Jisung shyly kicked his feet and looked down at the ground. “All you have to do is look at the bracelet, match them to the mug, and hand it over politely. There is a backdoor leading outside to the streets and the customers will leave whenever they are finished with their drink, so don’t bother waiting there and just come right back.”

“Okay, got it,” he nodded, mentally celebrating that he wouldn’t have to talk too much to anybody.

“Good, and… ah, what am I forgetting…” You looked around yourself, scratching your head as a pout made its way to your face. You only jumped after a moment, your fist pounding again your hand as you sucked in a breath. “Ah, right! Actually, it might not be a big problem but if you find some customers speaking a language you don’t understand, just smile and nod.”

Jisung tilted his head, his eyes blinking rapidly in bewilderment. He didn’t recall seeing anybody who looked like they wouldn’t speak his native language or even the universal one he learned ever since growing up. It shouldn’t be too big of a problem.

It was quite interesting that you needed to point it out, though. Perhaps having foreign customers is a daily thing and it would be a problem once he had to start talking more. Gosh, he should really do his research before applying for a job so recklessly.

“Yeah, not a problem,” he nodded. “I have quite a charming smile.”

“You do,” you giggled before you spoke, “If everything is set then I think we should get right to–ah, actually, let’s give you a nice welcome too.”

After cutting yourself off, you dropped the bracelet in your hand and approached him. Jisung paused his movements, forcing himself to stand on the ground while you approached. The shyness in his chest was blossoming slowly and it finally came to full bloom when you poked the tip of his nose with your finger.

He blinked, heat rushing to his cheeks as quick as the raising of the hair at the back of his neck. He wasn’t sure what you did that for but he was not complaining and neither did he hate it. You shuffled back with a short hum, staring at him and waiting for him to calm himself down so he could finally meet your eyes.

“Welcome to The Masquerade, it’s a mask parade here,” you laughed to yourself, your hands opened wide in a celebratory manner. “Or, as most people like to call it, welcome to the personality shop.”

* * *

Jisung propped up the cushion on the cotton couch and fluffed it before he moved away. He spent the last couple of minutes changing up the furniture in the lounge area after the customers have all left.

All seemed to have left in a hurry as well, leaving the chairs pushed back and the cushions flopped onto the ground. Jisung had frowned at that; whatever rush you are in, you shouldn’t leave things unattended to on the floor.

Taking a few steps back, he gave himself a satisfied smile as he looked at the tidying up he’s done for the couch table in the lounge area. Hopefully, this would score him some extra points, although it did seem like you have already chosen to hire him. Even then, he figured he should probably not let his guard down just yet, especially considering how unpredictable everything has been.

The morning batch went by smoothly, as per usual.

The mixing machines haven’t malfunctioned in ages and they still haven’t now, ridding you of the need to meticulously calculate the amount of each ingredient needed to put in a drink.

The orders were also very minimal this morning, which was just heavenly as it eliminated all the other trouble that came with having to distribute personalities to humans. The process could really get too conflicting sometimes, and it would be against your moral conscious to distribute the right thing to the wrong person.

Jisung was a real sweetheart the whole time. Although he didn’t attempt to initiate any conversation, he generously followed up with the ones you made and he always smiled with gratitude when you have a drink ready for him to hand out to the customers.

You found yourself to be quite fond of him. It would be hard not to, you suspected. He was a charming boy with excellent manners, plus just a tinge of shyness that added nothing but a very appealing flair to him overall. It would make sense that you found his first impression to induce heavy affection, but that would be as far as you would bring it.

“Hey, I kind of tidied up the place a little if that’s okay?” He asked when he returned from the lounge area, the wooden tray flat on his palm with a mug sitting on top.

He approached the counter and placed it on the surface carefully, setting the tray next to it. You came by to take the objects off the table before moving over to the shelf and setting them back into the drawers.

Jisung furrowed his brows, wondering if you planned on washing those used glass mugs you kept dumping into the drawers or if there was some washing machine installed in the shelf that he never heard about.

“I definitely don’t have a problem with it. Tidy it up all you want,” you laughed out as you returned the customer bracelets back to their place. “But make sure you didn’t change the original structure though. Those petty Kiddies will not be happy about some human messing up their original design.”

His frown could only deepen at your words. Just when he thought he was starting to understand you and that he was starting to communicate well, you went ahead to spill words he has no knowledge of once again.

It was like a cycle—normal conversation, some random nomenclature of an unknown subject, and then pure confusion.

“The Kiddies are tiny, plant humans that do the chores for us,” you informed him when you saw the questioning look etched on his face. “They clean the mugs and dust the walls and they tidy up the place here.”

God, the way you sounded so casual just… how infuriating! What the hell were you talking about! What little humans? Did you mean babies, did you mean newborn babies? Please be little babies instead of your local Thumbelina because Jisung would actually implode if you were talking about some magical creature.

“Okay, first of all, tiny humans? What the hell is that?” Jisung asked, calmly exclaiming each of his words with sardonic emphasis. “Second, I thought we already have tiny humans? What about the Chibis you mentioned?”

“Chibis are about the same except they look more like animals and they cause more mischief than help,” you replied. “And tiny humans! You know, kinda like Thumbelina?”

You should see the clock above Jisung’s head ticking off to a zero right about now. It was not every day you get told that tiny humans are real. Unfortunately for him, though, he couldn’t actually implode into a lump of smoke and forget this strange encounter ever happened.

“You know that’s a fairy tale, right?” He asked, sneaking in a huff of disbelief.

Your hands paused half-way going behind your back, but as a slow acknowledging, almost intrigued hum dragged out of your lips, you continued to reach behind for the apron knot.

“Skeptical much?” You retorted with a lack of abundant superiority, unlike how Jisung had softly come off as in his rhetorical question.

“That’s isn’t me being skeptical, it is known that Thumbelina is a fairytale.” He nodded with a half-hearted smile. “They have plays and illustration books and all those things for it.”

The knot became loose behind you, and you swiftly slid the apron off your body. You gave Jisung a nudge of your head, gesturing for him to take his own off as well, then you turned around to return the apron back on the hooks on the wall.

“Raconteurs don’t spring out of nowhere. Don’t you think some stories are too specific to not have happened?” You challenged, squinting your eyes at him daringly as you crossed your arms.

“No, I think some people just have a better imagination than others,” he replied, his voice strained as he fumbled with the knot behind his back. It took him a while before he could peel the apron of his frame and set it back on the cashier counter.

“You’re logical, I like that. You’re gonna need your head more than you’ll need your heart in this place,” you said as you headed to the counter to grab the apron from him, nodding when be offered gratitude. “But you don’t think outside the box much, do you?”

“I am not inclined to, no,” Jisung said, shrugging. “But why does that matter? The truth is the truth.”

“Certain truth changes with time. What you believe now can always be proven false,” you said.

Eyeing him, you could see his lips pursing and relaxing as if he wanted to say something. He wanted to refute, but he wasn’t sure how he should bring about the topic of social issues that always seemed to have all kinds of sides attached to them. You weren’t close to him enough for him to start arguing about such things, and he didn’t plan to make enemies.

You hummed, as if looking right through him, then you sighed. “It’s good to stay neutral, Jisung.”

“Neutral is bad in certain senses.”

“What do you propose, then?”

“Pick the lesser of two evils.”

“Ahh.” There was a lightness in your voice that unsettled him, sounding like you weren’t taking him as seriously as he hoped you would take this topic of choice. You looked up at him, your eyes sparkling with an unreadable gleam, something that felt like intolerance that steamed from omniscience.

“The lesser of two evils, yes, yes. And the joke of it all is that you humans get to define what evil means, is that it?” You questioned, raising your brows at him.

“You know I don’t mean it like that.”

“Yes, perhaps, but it’s always about a collective effort. It’s not just you,” you said, a somewhat sing-song voice lacing your throat. “But I suppose, generalizing is only bad when it’s convenient for you, isn’t it? Otherwise, one person taints all.”

Jisung blinked, his fingers scratching the fabric of his pants. Where was all this cynicism coming from? You were all bubbles just a while back, but that pastel wonders have vanished from your eyes and replaced with the iron rust of a superiority complex, it seemed.

You felt both out of touch from reality and know too much about what was going on. It was unnerving.

“What then, so I’ve been living a lie my whole life?” He asked, disbelief riddled in his voice.

“Yes, technically. Not right now, but you will realize you have,” You smiled with a soft nod, one that Jisung didn’t feel too happy seeing now. Then you sucked in a breath, your smile turning into something more of an amusement. “Well, that is if we’re not counting the truth deliberately hidden from the mundane world.”

“You keep saying things that separate yourself from us,” he pointed out, shifting his weight to relax the tense muscles.

“I am different. Sure, I am a human being, but your world is not the world I live in,” you hummed. “At least not anymore. I’ve lost touch aside from the stories I hear from the customers, and I assume that wouldn’t be enough for me to understand the complexity of how you people operate.”

Jisung kept quiet, wondering what you meant by not living amongst the world he has been for the past years, for all of his life. Even after staying here for so long, hearing you talk and watching unexpected turns of events, still there was not one trace of thought that deemed this place to be surreal and out of the Earth.

You could see it on his face. The idea of magic and fantasy still haven’t flickered across his head, you assumed, and you wanted to heave a sigh. Skeptics will always be skeptics until proof is provided, supposed, and _fortunately,_ you have just that to show him this time.

Jisung looked at your hand when you held it up. For a moment, he almost thought you were asking for a handshake, but your hand was positioned differently than what a handshake should look like. Not a second later, though, a gust of wind brushed past him, bringing along a thin book with it.

Your fingers clutched around the book as it delivered itself to your hand. You flashed Jisung a smile before opening it and putting it down on the counter. You waved him closer and waited until he could see the book before you leaned down, signing your name in the empty slot with the tip of your finger.

You flipped it around when you were done, and you pushed it towards him. “It’s just the logbook. You don’t have to sign it before you work, just sign it after so the logbook can record how long you’ve worked and what you’ve done.”

“Oh… do I just… I just sign it?” He asked, pointing at the old parchment paper. “Can I have a pen?”

“You sign with your finger. That way the book can identify your skin and it’ll let the Entity know what you’ve touched from behind the counter and how long you’ve been moving around the area,” you explained.

Jisung smiled uneasily, shaking his head and following your instructions. He ran his finger through the empty slot underneath yours, and he waited for a few seconds before his signature miraculously inked itself out on the paper. Appearing next to his name was the time-stamp of how long he worked here and what he has done.

He sucked in a breath, jumping slightly when you clamped the book shut and headed back to the wall. You banged on it twice and it switched, turning into the wall and appearing with a small red mailbox. You opened the door and stuffed the logbook inside, closing it before pulling at the handle located on the side.

“We have a lot to talk about, Jisung,” you said as you crossed your arms as you moved to stand in front of him. “If you still want to work here, that is. But I will let you decide that after giving you a light briefing of what this place is for and where it came from.”

The only thing that separated the two of you was the cashier counter, but even then, Jisung felt like you were breathing down his neck with mysterious ideals lingering at the fluttering of your lashes. He could feel his skin prick somehow, the agitation he had before starting to work here coming back to him like a tidal wave.

“I would let you choose where we should start talking about this place but I think the Chibis has your bag and your resume in the Glory Garden, so you might want to go retrieve that,” you said with a grimace, jabbing your finger at the corner where Jisung had dumped his belongings at.

He immediately turned his head over and he yelped, rushing over with his hands stuck to the edge of the counter. His eyes were wide in alert at the disappearance of his bag, and he turned to you hurriedly. “Where the fu–where did my things go?”

“Like I said, the Glory Garden,” you said as you kicked the counter and slipped outside. You were closer to him now, but Jisung couldn’t bring himself to care when his wallet and his phone were dumped in some weird place he has never heard of. You sighed, placing a hand on his shoulder. “Don’t worry, we’re going there now. Follow me.”

He did as you told, his footsteps loud as he trailed closely behind you. You moved over to the side where the empty wall was. You stood before it, standing in the center beneath the carved-in quote, and you placed your hand flat against the surface.

Jisung waited for something special to happen, but this seemed less dramatic than the other instances he witnessed. There was only a strong glow of white, starting from the top of your head and lining down to draw out the shape of a door. The wind blew at your hair as the glow of white burst out from the wall and vanished into the thin air, leaving remnants of glow dust behind.

It took a moment for the wall to sink beneath, but it was only the portion of the door that did so. He could hear the ground rumble beneath him, and perhaps a little shake as the door carved itself into existence. The light gliding sound of knives dragging across a wooden surface made him shiver, but he could see a pattern appearing on the door.

And before he knew it, there were vines and leaves sprouting from the wooden ground to connect at the top. It came full circle to create what seemed like a garden entrance. You turned around to look at him, using one hand to wave him forward as your other hand grasped the ring pull.

“Come on. It’s the garden, not the cave,” you said as you pushed open the door.

Jisung approached you, carefully stepping through the door and watching as it closed firmly behind him. When he turned back around, he flinched dramatically in surprise to find himself facing a colorful meadow.

The sky was as a shade of pastel blue above him, the clouds visibly moving towards one direction collectively. However, it seemed like the area has a light, warm-toned filter cascading down that made everything easier to the eye.

The breeze continued to blow but he felt warm under the blazing sun. The flowers were all in full bloom, the different shades and sizes complementing each other harmoniously, and the trees stood tall and high from one spot to another.

“When you said garden, I thought you meant something closer to a greenhouse,” he muttered as he followed you along the grassy path.

“Oh, no, I just call it a garden because it is in the name,” you giggled. “One of my friends has a garden behind his door, though. An actual garden, I mean.”

“You have friends–uh, I mean like…” he cleared his throat, “there are other stores like this? Weird, high-technology that doesn’t feel like technology, and secret doors and… all that.”

“Yes, but his store looks way different than this one.” You emphasized, rolling your eyes slightly before coming to a slow stop.

You sniffed the air, your head tilting up at the sky. Jisung went completely quiet, not wanting to disturb whatever it was that you were doing. He waited as you looked around the place suspiciously, your eyes darting everywhere at what seemed to be empty spaces before, as if on cue, you stuck your feet outward.

“Got you!” You exclaimed.

A thud could be heard from the ground, and when Jisung lowered his head, he was both glad and surprised to find his bag and his resume papers on the ground. Kneeling down to pick his belongings up, he couldn’t help but notice the little figures that got smushed beneath his bag. Reaching a hand out carefully, he poked at it once and fell back on his feet when the tiny being jumped up and started swinging their tiny fists at him.

“Hey, hey, hey!” You reached down to pick up the Chibi, letting it land on your palm while her friends all scurried away with tiny laughter echoing through the air. “Now, what did we say about taking people’s things without permission?”

Jisung stood up from the ground and dusted his pants, grimacing at the dirt that stained his pants. When he returned his attention to you, his eyes softened in curiosity to find you talking to a creature sitting on your palm. That was the Thumbelina you were talking about, the Chibis that took his things.

He held up his bag to discreetly measure its weight, then he hummed in approval. Quite strong; granted, there seemed to have been more than one of them back there. So they were basically ants but in human form. Also a little mischievous and understands human language.

Intriguing, thankfully he was no scientist, or else this would not end well for anybody. Also, what the fuck.

“Jisung, come here,” you beckoned him over before turning back to the creature in your hand. “What do we do when we did something wrong?”

“Oh–it’s fine,” Jisung waved his hands, “she’s probably really young, right? Kids do this all–“

“She’s a fairy, she’s immortal.”

“–yeah, yeah, I figured,” he muttered, his voice significantly lower as he scratched his head in embarrassment.

He looked at the creature in your palm then, waiting for it to do something. As it stood up, stumbling on your flesh with its bare feet, he finally saw that the skirt she wore was made out of flower petals being sewed together messily into a dress.

He wasn’t sure if it was made using a needle and a thread, but he assumed it shouldn’t be this uneven if it was, since you would be the one making it for them.

The Chibi stood up pressed her hands to her front and bowed her head, her hair falling over her little face. Jisung breathed out a chuckle, fascinated. When she looked up at him, her brows furrowed slightly, he let out a short yell and reached into his bag so he could fish out a candy wrap.

“Here, it’s candy,” he said, holding it out to the Chibi.

It took her a few sniffs and a look thrown behind her shoulder at you before she had to courage to take it out of Jisung’s hand. You laughed as you set the girl down and watched her run off to find her friends about the sweet she just gained.

“You’re good with them,” you commented. “Wish I had candy on me when I first came around here. It was a disaster trying to get to know them. They never sit still and kept running around, I almost had to put them in candle cages.”

“Well, thanks for teaching them manners before I come along,” he said, laughing to himself. “I probably wouldn’t have known how to deal with them if they were as prankish as you said they are.”

“I think you would have done a way better job than I did, though,” you said, “but that’s just a thought.”

You two walked in silence then. You trying to find a comfortable location before you dump all the information onto him while Jisung busied himself with basking in the environment, waiting with anticipation for you to finally reveal the truth about this place to him.

Why he was here, how he got around to applying for a job here and getting a notification for an interview, and just about everything that has happened in the store.

You found a shaded spot underneath a tree and proposed you two could sit there to begin talking about the store. Jisung had no complaints about the location whatsoever. All he wanted to do was find out about as much as he was supposed to know about this store.

It took you a while to finally begin, simply because there was so much to say at one go that your thoughts have turned into a completely disorganized mess. You almost wanted to ask Jisung to fire you questions so it would be easier for you to give him all the information he should know before deciding whether he would fully commit to working in the shop.

“We all know that this is a store where people can buy things, specifically drinks, so we can get that out of the way. What this shop sells, I will get into in a moment, but let’s talk origin.” You clasped your hands together and let them rest on your thighs. “This is not the only store, actually. We have a chain of stores operating all around the world and they all serve a different purpose.”

“We also have a similar store chain like this, but they operate on a different universe and they are a little bit different than us, species-wise,” you said, arching your brows funnily at him. “Anyway, this chain of magical shops are created to… give people a cheat code they wouldn’t be able to get anywhere else, if I can say it like that. And it is created by a being we call the Entity.”

Jisung hummed, shifting his position a little. “Oh, like the movie.”

“What movie?”

“We can watch it sometime, but go on!”

“We have never seen them before, at least I haven’t. The Entity only leaves signs and messages, either in visible places or in our heads,” you pointed at your temple, “We won’t even know it when they do. Things just get added in our brain and we know how to do certain things.”

“Ahh, so the inner-voices but helpful,” Jisung joked, nodding to himself.

“Yeah… you can say that?” You said, tilting your head side to side and scrunching your face in an attempt to show that you neither agree nor disagree with his example.

“Anyway, like I said, the Entity created these stores to help out people. We had a different variety of stores. My co-workers operate shops that sell other things than us, such as emotions, realism magic, actual magic but on a very light scale,” you counted off your finger before looking at him, “and there is us, personality.”

Jisung blinked at you slowly, then a smile spread across his lips as he held up his hands in mock defeat. He has been pretty calm for the past minute, listening to you talk like there wasn’t a problem with anything you were saying, but his limit line could only go so far.

“I think you are explaining very well, but I genuinely have no idea what the hell you are talking about,” he said with a shrug, defeat written all over his face.

You frowned at him, slightly annoyed that he wasn’t comprehending. “We sell personalities.”

“You can’t sell personalities.”

“Let me ask you something, Jisung,” you said, leaning backward with your elbow propped up on the grassy ground. “Be truthful with me. Have you ever acted like a different person in front of different people?”

Jisung laughed, “I think everybody has.”

“If you can fake being an entirely different person, what makes you think personalities can be sold to people?” You said, your voice rising for emphasis. “It’s the same logic. Except instead of doing it yourself, we can guarantee you your act won’t slip. And you wouldn’t even feel the exhaustion of having to act like someone you aren’t, because after we sell the personality to you, you become it.”

It wasn’t that Jisung couldn’t understand it. He could, one hundred percent. You give people the personality they desire, they take it, and they display that kind of personality. It wasn’t hard to understand the system… only if it was given to him in a fictional context. If he heard it in a book, he would have no trouble jumping on board with it, but this wasn’t a book.

That sounded scientifically impossible in real life. With no surgical operation, no traumatic experiences, no tendency to please everybody; just a long sip of a drink and you could change yourself? No, that’s insane, perhaps even too good to be true.

“I don’t believe you,” Jisung said, a timid smile lingering on his face that looked more like an awkward cry than anything. He played with the blade of grass before his platform shoes, pulling at it and twisting it. “I don’t believe you can do that.”

“I’m not the one doing it, Jisung. I am just the barista making the drink,” you said, shaking your head in clarification. “The ingredients are the ones doing the job. Every location the door brings us to, the one we just walked through, will bring us to a place filled with personality dust. We can find the dust in nature, like petals and rocks.”

Jisung snorted. “And grass?”

“Yes, grass,” you nodded, “Dig your nails into the blade of it and see.”

He eyed up at you, not sure if he wanted to do as you told, but the curiosity was eating away at his heart. Dust lingering in the middle of a piece of grass? It’s got to be a super deliberate prank. If it was one in the first place.

He unwilling plucked one from the ground and brought it to his face. He dug his nail into the surface, scratching it. Immediately, a darkened scrape of green molded on top of the surface, and a pile of yellow-colored dust pattered down his knuckles.

He gasped beneath his breath, his eyes widening as he angled his hand to keep the specks of dust from rolling off his skin. “It’s yellow!”

“Oh, what kind of yellow?” You asked curiously, sitting up and moving over to him.

“I don’t know? Just yellow,” he shrugged, holding his hand out to you.

Grabbing a gentle hold of it, you examined the dust on his hand carefully before realization hit you. “Ah, this is butter yellow, it’s friendly dust.”

“It’s that specific?” He asked lowly, his eyes crinkling.

“Yes, of course. How many plain colors are there in comparison to the number of personalities that exist?” You exclaimed, shoving his arm. “If you want to work here in the future, you’re going to have to be able to differentiate all the different dust colors.”

“All–hmm, hold on a second,” he held up his hands, his voice pausing for a moment. “Should that… whatever thing–the Entity! Shouldn’t it, like, give us the knowledge to already be able to differentiate the colors?”

You breathed out a sigh. Alright, he has got it a little skewed but that wouldn’t be a problem to fix. You suspected he would have that reaction since the short-cut would always be more appealing than something that would require effort.

“Okay, that’s not what the Entity does. It tells us information in the head. The only way for us to know how to do something is by it telling us what to do,” you explained. “But, whatever happens after that is up to us to remember. It doesn’t get carved into your brain, you’re just absorbing information at lightning speed, you can still forget them.”

“And I can imagine how frustrating it would be to have to describe a color shade to someone constantly while trying to juggle the order of other shops,” you added.

“Oh…” Jisung hummed, then he scoffed. “So it’s not all-knowing, then.”

“The Entity never was, it’s not a God or anything,” you pointed out. “Even then, Gods, too, have their limits, albeit the bar is astronomically high.”

“Oh, alright, we are venturing into some deeper religious topics,” he said, feigning seriousness as he pulled up the invisible sleeve of his shirt. “Let’s never talk about it.”

“I don’t plan to, we wouldn’t want one of them to visit our store,” you said, shivering from past experience. “Ugh, they can be so picky and impulsive sometimes.”

“I said let’s not talk about it as in I don’t really want to know if they’re real or not,” Jisung nodded with his eyes trained on the ground, looking sour as if his childhood was ruined. “But I see I got my answer anyway. That is delightful to know.”

“You don’t sound very delighted.”

“It’s called hiding your true emotions.”

“My friend knows a lot about that,” you mentioned with a faint chuckle, bringing your thoughts back to the last encounter you all had under the grand tree in the Holy Oaks. “Come to think of it, he still hasn’t sent me my tranquility perfume.”

“Perfumes?” Jisung raised a brow, licking his lower lip slowly. “I thought _we_ all sell the same things.”

“No, our shops all differ in terms of what we sell and how we sell it. We sell by using drinks, and we don’t allow takeouts because there isn’t any need for takeouts. Also, it’d be a shame if the personality dust got out unattended,” you said, pursing your lips together as you rolled your eyes skywards in thoughts.

Your fingers wiggled against your thighs as you listed off a few instances. “Okay… Chan handles… the modern magic shop sells through music, so his shop looks more… cyber? And then we have actual magic, which sells through accessories. And the emotion shop sells with perfume.”

“Oh, I see,” Jisung hummed. “Would you say we have it the easiest?”

“Well, I… I’m not very sure?” You furrowed your brows as laughter escaped your mouth in uncertain huffs. “Sometimes my friend just strums an electric guitar and suddenly your presentation will go miraculously well. And I think Hyunjin… he pre-makes his accessories but he doesn’t finish it so he leaves slots to add the needed trinkets before selling them.”

“So we’re just about the same, that’s cool,” he muttered, drumming his fingers on his ankle as he tried to think of more things to ask.

He planned to get the most out of it despite having made the decision to work here anyway, it was only to fuel his curiosity. He figured he would have to discover things along the way later, and he might not be the brightest to catch on when the store starts getting busy.

“So… basically we just make drinks for customers and that’s it?”

“Yeah. All the shelves you saw behind me are all the personality dust. When you start working here, you’ll be able to access the top shelf with magic, but for the first few days, it’d be better to use the latter or ask for help instead. Since your telekinesis might be a little wobbly,” you wiggled your fingers and let your hand drop down to your thighs.

“It can get pretty busy around here depending on how many people need our service. Occasionally we have an odd-ball that would need an immediate drink, but most of our customers come in batches at preset times,” you said, holding up five fingers.

“Sunrise, morning, afternoon, sunset, and evening. You would probably only be around for the morning and afternoon, I assume?”

“Maybe afternoon to sunset,” Jisung said, calculating the vague and confusing timeline in his head. “I have mainly morning classes so… yeah, I could start working in mid-afternoon until the rest of the day.”

“That’s fine. It’s not like I haven’t been handling the work by myself anyway,” you shrugged. “So, as I said, you get the dust from the drawers and the drink ingredients from the shelves. All you have to do is insert everything into the slot of the mixing machine and it’ll pretty much do the job for you. The vexing part is to calculate the portion of personality you want to put into the drink, which I will teach you eventually.”

“Ahh, so you have to be very… accurate.”

“Yes, but I suppose the hardest part would really be figuring out if you want to give a certain personality to someone,” you hummed with furrowed brows, a distant look flickering before your eyes briefly. “The people who come in here are… well, they have stories. And you have to be careful not to be swayed by your emotions, sometimes you just couldn’t give them what they want and you have to send them away.”

There was a slightly relaxed look on Jisung’s face. You weren’t sure if he was thinking of something or if he didn’t take your words as seriously as you hoped he would. Perhaps he couldn’t think of any negative consequences that would come with being able to have full control over your personality, and you didn’t plan to explain it all to him now.

He’d understand with time with the more people he meets in the shop.

“Have you ever messed up?” Was the question he asked when he finally decided to speak again. He looked at you, the wind blowing at his hair and his eyes squinting wistfully. It looked as if he was prompting a deeper answer than something slight; something with a terrible consequence than, let’s say, making the wrong drink.

But you knew you couldn’t give him the answer he would hope to receive, not the impactful one, that would be too personal. Maybe somewhere down the line, he would be able to break down the walls surrounding yourself and finally get to where your core lays, but for now, your guard would remain up with a fabricated-self being presented at the front.

“I have, and so will you,” you nodded with a guilted smile, but it was more nostalgic than upset. When he laughed in disbelief, his eyes widening as he pointed at himself, you only gave him an affirmative nod.

And then it was quiet again.

Jisung let you stay quiet, but something in him irked at the way you deliberately dodged his question. He made sure his voice was low and steady enough to come off more solemn, he was really hoping to get an intricate answer in return. But, thinking about it a little more, he thought he might have asked too much from a stranger like you.

Personality—oh, it would take a long time for him to get rid of the disbelief—is not something he’d mess around with, certainly. To mess it up would be equivalent to destroying a person’s life, he assumed. Even just a small tweak could make a big difference.

You wouldn’t tell him a big mess right off the bat, and he should not have expected you to. That was inconsiderate of him.

Looking up at him, you let the silence drown on for a little more so you could finally sit down and give his face an even closer look. There wasn’t much to say, was there? Every time you tried to think of something, your mind always came down with the conclusion that Jisung is good-looking. You’d have to get to know him a little more to be able to describe anything else, it felt, to say something one a more intimate level.

You weren’t sure if you two would ever get there.

“Oh.”

Your eyes widened a little as it finally dawned on you the potential purpose behind his arrival. Your fingers found each other and you sucked in a breath, a belated breath that went against your rapid heartbeat. It has been so long since your bubbles went up, you have almost forgotten what your core felt like, it seemed.

Did the Entity think—no. Not possible, everyone else got a new companion. Jisung was not especially sent here for you. But if that was the case, it could very well be that all of the shop keepers had an inner-conflict of their own that the Entity thought needed guidance to ‘fix.’

“Oh?” Jisung repeated, reaching over to look at you.

“Oh–um, I need to ask something,” you said quickly, putting on a smile. “I need to ask if you really do plan to work here, and for long-term as well.”

“Yeah, I do want to work here,” he replied came easy, his smile pursed and honest. “I would love to work here.”

“Good, good, that eliminates us a lot of trouble then,” you said, “I’d have to erase your memories of this place if you decided you won’t.”

“Ah, duly noted,” he nodded, clicking his tongue. “I assume I shouldn’t go around blabbering about this place either?”

“That would be best for your sake,” you said, almost haunting just to add some dramatic effect. “Are there any more questions before I let you leave this place?”

“Yes!” Jisung clapped his hands tougher excitedly, he has been waiting for this moment. When he relaxed a little, he placed his hands on the grass and he leaned closer to you, his eyes wide and round as he asked, “About the telekinesis thing you briefly mentioned and gave me no time to react to, do you mean I get to do that book thing you did?”

Your lips quirked up at his enthusiasm. You couldn’t even tell if he was only excited because it was magic or if he wanted to be proven wrong that magic didn’t exist. Either way, his reaction was a breath of fresh air. You wondered how long it would take before he’d get sick and tired of his ability.

“Yes, you can do minimal magic that is universal, like moving objects and lighting fire,” you said as you snapped your fingers to reveal a small burst of fire at the tip of your nail. “Your hands are the best tools you have in the shop, and only in the shop, not outside!”

Jisung’s jaw dropped in amazement, his fists curling at his chest as his eyes darting between your face and your finger.

“Aside from this, you will also have access to the mechanisms around the shop, meaning you can turn secret walls and reveal hidden doors, all of those,” you said before taking a deep breath. Now the real deal comes. “And, the grandest one of all, the Entity grants all shop workers a unique ability pertaining to their shop theme. It’s for combat purposes, in case outworld creatures, or occasionally human beings, comes in to cause chaos.”

Jisung widened his eyes. “Like… stealing?”

“Yes, something like that. But most of the time, demons like to come around and suck up the Entity’s energy surrounding the store, which would be very bad for me if that happened, since I live here.” You said as you hardened your gaze on the ground.

“Why, do they consume the store or something…?”

“No. I will get torn to shreds if that happens because all the stores are both everywhere and nowhere in space and time,” you said, then you frowned. “Ah, right! Damn, I should have told you that earlier!”

Jisung watched you with concern, both at your reaction and what you just told him. Was there perhaps something worse than… distributing artificial personalities for people to use?

“Okay. All the stores are powered by the Entity’s pre-stored energy. There is magic everywhere in the store to keep a physical form and for it to be everywhere at any time. We have customers coming from all parts of the world, at any time of the day, but we operate on the time of this country,” you explained carefully.

“And I also forgot to tell you that you’ll be able to speak and understand all languages when you are in the shop, that comes with the whole ability package,” you said. “Basically, the only reasons why our store can be located nowhere and everywhere at the same time is with the Entity’s magic. We can always ask for more, but when a demon comes around, they tend to want to suck up everything.”

“If we don’t stop them, we will be sucked into a back abyss and the lightyear frequency will actually chomp us into pieces.” You took a deep breath, exhale it, and smiled. “I hope that is okay with you.”

Jisung gulped down a knot. Well, that… that did sound morbid, but what are the odds of that actually happening? You were still alive, he’d take his risks in return for the ability to do some stupid magic tricks.

“That’s fine, but uh, what about the–“ he shook his shoulders, visibly shaking his eyes to exaggerate his point, “–the big thing you were talking about?”

“Um… that… I don’t know what the Entity has in plan for you,” you said with a shrug, “but I can show you mine if you want.”

He reached his hands out, signaling for you to start.

You smiled at him briefly before you adjusted your sitting position. You folded your legs so you sat in a kneeling position, then you closed your eyes. Putting your palms together, you placed it before your lips and muttered a very short, inaudible chant.

Feeling the energy glow at your palm, and soon when a lumpy feeling protruded through your skin, you carefully flicked your wrist forward so your fingers pointed to the front. You turned your hand to the side so they lay on top of each other instead of side by side, then, swiftly, you clasped your hands together and finally pulled them apart.

Sitting between the spaces of your palm, slowing morphing itself into existence, was a white mask with a happy face drawn on it with ink. It looked like one of those fox masks but not quite the same either. The drawing was less detailed and blander, making it look out of place on top of the blank white canvas.

You retrieved the mask and waved it at Jisung, who looked around him to see if anything else has changed. When he returned his attention to you, he scoffed, “Your power is to pull a mask out of thin air?”

You deadpanned at his disappointment, rolling your eyes as you quickly put the mask onto your face. Jisung felt a bright light shone directly at his eyes, and he immediately shielded himself from it. It was both blinding and piercing, like someone accidentally jabbed at his eyes to force him to shut them.

When he opened his eyes again, the person sitting before him was no longer… no longer… who was he talking just a while ago? He couldn’t recall a single thing. He looked up at his mother, his head tilting to the side in absolute confusion.

As he blinked at his mother, he asked, “Wait–mom, how did I get here–where are we, exactly?”

“Woah, somebody is forgetful,” you spoke through the mask, watching him carefully. “We are in Jeju Island, Jisung. We are on vacation? Since it’s spring break?”

“Spring break–mom, I just started school again,” Jisung laughed, scratching his head. This was messing with his head a little. His mother didn’t sound like his mother, but she looked and felt exactly like her for some reason. And he couldn’t recall anything that happened, every time he tried to think, his head would go black. “What are you talking about… also, Jeju Island doesn’t even look like this–“

“It’s me, idiot,” you cut him off by quickly revealing yourself, taking off the mask and putting it next to your face. “I can turn into the person when I wear the mask, anybody that pertains to the faces displayed on it.”

Jisung opened his eyes once again after immediately shutting it at the sight of his mother’s face melting into something else. He looked at you once again, his eyes wide in alert at what he just witnessed. Well, that was one hell of a mind-fucking ability, especially when he wasn’t able to recall a single thing prior to you wearing the mask.

“That’s… that’s cool,” he commented, already wondering if he would be granted something similar to it.

“I guess? But I do like the other aspect of it better, though,” you said, brushing off the dust on the mask as you eyed him carefully. Raising a brow, you asked, “Do you want to see? I am pretty sure you will be able to do this too, it’s the other feature that would be different.”

“Sure, go ahead. What haven’t I seen, anyway?”

You shrugged, then you threw the mask upwards to the sky. Jisung followed it up, watching as it disappeared into the blueness before he glanced back down at you. His brows furrowed as he looked at you, questions riddled in each part of his face and his eyes darting around for anything suspicious.

Before he could finally open his mouth to speak, a loud rumbling sound emerged from the sky. Not even a second sooner, the same mask dropped back down to the ground, causing a very strong blow of wind that Jisung could feel his body being pushed back at the impact. When he opened his eyes to look again, he could barely see the sun anymore, and a big portion of shadow covered both your and his small body.

Standing tall behind you was the mask you just threw skywards, except bigger, much bigger. It was the size of a two-story house; its eyes remained shut and its lips reminded a smile, but somehow he could feel nightmarish energy radiating off its face, ready to strike anybody who dares who hurt its summoner.

“They can move on their own,” you mentioned, “Say hi to Smiley.”

“Hi–hi,” his voice choked and went high-pitched, “Hi, Smiley–I’m so sorry.”

“He is a new friend, his name is Jisung,” you grinned with an audible laugh as you looked up at the mask and waved your hand. “You can go now! Good job today!”

Jisung shivered when he heard a hollow noise coming off the mask, but afterward, it simply shrunk itself back to its normal size and it shrunk back into the middle of your palm. Rubbing your hands together, you made sure your skin was sealed before you turned back to look at Jisung.

He stared back at you, his brows raising at your hands, then he caught your eyes. “Do I have to name my masks if I ever get them?”

“You will get them,” you replied, “And no, but I think it’s nice to befriend them. They are your companions in fighting off creatures.”

“Okay, yeah!” He exclaimed breathlessly, nodding as the worst-case scenarios flooded into his head. “I think I am going to be nice to them regardless!”

You hummed in approval, rubbing your hands on your skin to regain the natural feeling of your flesh. It was a habit of yours; every time you pull a mask out of your palm, it leaves a gaping hole in the middle, and it doesn’t feel the same right after your skin gets sewed up again so you need to rub against surfaces to give it a more fulfilling sensation, like there is coverage on top.

“So, are you still…” you began slowly, “are you still going to work here, or did my mask scare you off?”

Jisung gave it a moment of thought, but he wasn’t thinking about much other than the giant mask that would probably be haunting his memory for the rest of the day. Or even the rest of the week if he was unlucky. But he knew what his decision was, he had it made the first time you officially asked him about working here.

“Yeah, please,” he said. “I’d love to work here.”

**Author's Note:**

> this is one of the four shops i have in mind and i am really liking the world-building (or shop-building…?) of this universe! i don’t know if i want to write the rest of the shop intros though ;;


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